White House Patriots Crowd Size Stirs Controversy

The organization said 34 players visited the White House Wednesday. Tom Brady was a late scratch from the visit because of a personal issue, and a few other players declined to make the trip.

President Donald Trump slammed the New York Times Thursday for posting images contrasting the New England Patriots' 2015 and 2017 White HouseSuper Bowl celebrations. The team wrote: "These photos lack context". "In 2015, over 40 football staff were on the stairs. In 2017, they were seated on the South Lawn".

Brady said he was unable to attend the Wednesday event at which President Donald Trump honored the Super Bowl winners - reportedly because he was spending time with his ailing mother.

While some players stated they were skipping the Trump event for political reasons, the team suggested that because it has won two Super Bowls in three seasons, the lack of novelty of a White House visit might have kept some players away.

That's when George W. Bush was president.

The New York Times tweeted out a comparison photo of yesterday's delegation versus the 2015 visit when Obama was in office. "Today, we had 34".

Meanwhile, Trump opted to maintain his love/hate relationship with his hometown newspaper - while he loves to describe The New York Times as "failing", he also gives them a steady stream of interviews and scoops.

President Trump took to Twitter Thursday morning to express his outrage with the Times tweet, saying that the "Failing @nytimes" had "just got caught in a big lie".

New England has now visited the White House five times after winning the Lombardy Trophy.

"Bad tweet by me".

Patriots spokesperson Stacey James told the New York Times that "one reason substantially fewer players showed up this time as compared to 2015 was that some veteran players did not see the need to go twice in three years". Once we learned more, we tried to fix everything as much as possible as swiftly as possible and as transparently as possible. "I just needed to own it".